


time may change me

by buckymyson (trashfinity)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, MJ is a good friend/girlfriend, Miscarriage, Peter is not alright, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Sorry Not Sorry, Teen Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, at all, but there isn't any, damn this got dark, ish, loosely based around Infinity War, maybe some making out, mentions of thanos and other avengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 18:19:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11857026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashfinity/pseuds/buckymyson
Summary: a story about change, Peter's anxiety, and Michelle Jones.





	time may change me

**Author's Note:**

> so um this took a bit of a dark turn and I'm not sorry
> 
> warnings for anxiety/panic attacks, teen pregnancy, miscarriage, and general teenage angst
> 
> title from 'changes' by butterfly boucher but you would probably know it from shrek 2 because that's how I do

Things change over summer. Gradually, MJ inserts herself into Peter's life until it's August and she's leaving for a week and there's a distinct MJ-shaped hole. He calls her after a bad day, sometime in June, when the anxiety is clawing at his throat, relentless and sharp as he struggles to breathe and all he can see is dust and cement and a piece of rebar an inch from piercing his leg, his arm, his chest and water slowly drowning him as it soaks his face, and she talks him through it all, telling him to focus on her voice and that he's okay, he's alright, he's Peter Parker and not Spider-Man right now. It becomes a habit of theirs, with Peter calling in distress and MJ helping him through it until he calls her one day, randomly, impulsively, and they share stories and laugh at his lame jokes and debate about the dumbest things and they're friends, almost. Maybe not Peter-and-Ned level, but something close. Something real. 

 

Their first kiss is on the roof of his apartment, the humid summer air soaking them with sweat. Ned’s at a family thing for the day, something about a party and tradition and being the chosen one, but the heat has melted his brain like it's a popsicle and he honestly can't recall what he ate for breakfast so there's no way he's remembering something like that. MJ was free though, and Peter was bored, so she came over to hang out because they're friends, even if May waggles her eyebrows whenever he mentions her and he blushes when their eyes meet and he dreams about her in ways he should not dream about a friend. 

 

(Okay, so maybe he has a tiny crush on MJ. But he's not going to apologize for it. He knows it will never go anywhere because MJ is brilliant and sarcastic and beautiful, whereas he's an anxiety-riddled mess who can barely remember to change his socks and sometimes forgets to eat for an entire day.)

 

They decide on the roof because his apartment is a fucking sauna and a roof promises wind. Peter brings his web shooters and MJ brings her book, and they sit on a blanket and sometimes talk and mostly just enjoy each other's presence. And then she's setting her book down and looking at him with those brown eyes and her dazzling smile she always saves for him and she's asking if she can kiss him and he's saying yes because it's the stuff of his dreams and dreams are harmless if he never mentions them. 

 

Her lips are soft, softer than he imagined, and they taste like cherries and he could kiss them all day long. Something ignites in his chest when they touch, passionate flames licking his heart, and he wants more. Needs more. So he presses himself against her chest, snakes an arm around her bare neck, spreads his fingers across her hip. Her hand tangles through his hair, strokes his knee, cups his cheek. They kiss again, and again, and again until his phone buzzes and MJ pulls away. He hates how her hand awkwardly twists the blanket’s edge instead of touching him, feels jealous that a piece of fabric is touching more of her skin than he is, but he picks up his phone anyways. It's May, asking where they are and he'd forgotten that she'd left to buy groceries an hour ago and asking that he help her put them away. He can't say no or she'll be suspicious, so Peter reluctantly steps away from MJ and moves to the door. 

 

May teases them when they enter the apartment, quickly noticing their swollen lips and sheepish expressions as signs of their kissing. She was a teenager once too, she reminds them before opening the fridge and setting a bottle of orange juice on the shelf. There's little he can hide from his aunt, he knows this, but he wishes he could try sometimes. This thing with MJ, whatever they make of it, it's special, and Peter wants to keep it that way. But then he remembers Uncle Ben telling him that love is special, not because it's so rare, but because everyone has it. Uncle Ben was always giving him advice, always teaching him everything Peter thought was gone after his death. He just didn't know what it all meant until now. 

 

Whatever they have changes very little. There's more handholding and kissing than before, but they still have movie nights with Ned and dinners with May and build Lego sets in his room. Peter's content with this, content that even as his girlfriend, MJ is still his friend. Losing her friendship but gaining her love would ruin everything they have and Peter couldn't handle that. He needs her in every way, loves her in every way. 

 

School starts and nothing's different. Flash remains an entitled douchebag, Decathlon practices every Monday and Thursday after school, and Peter sits in the same spot at lunch. Sometimes they'll forget where they are and start making out in front of the lockers until Ned tells them to knock it off. Sometimes Flash will call MJ out for favoritism with Peter and she'll kindly tell him to get fucked. His anxiety is getting better, and he's finding a balance between Peter the kid and Peter the hero. His phone calls with MJ are less about his fears and more about the little old ladies he helped cross the street or the cat he rescued from a tree. MJ is proud of his progress, even seems happier when he manages to sleep through the night and finish his homework on time. 

 

They're friends and more than friends and kissing and falling in love but nothing changes and Peter's  _ happy.  _

 

Until MJ becomes distant sometime around Christmas and Peter puts it off as a reaction to spending the holiday without her father. He's good now, good enough that he sleeps seven hours a night without nightmares and hasn't had a full-blown panic attack in weeks. He doesn't depend on her so much anymore, doesn't rely on her to help him through the day because he can handle things by himself again. 

 

It's not until she's cancelled on him for the third time in a week that he begins to think something's wrong. School started last week and he's barely seen her at all. She's off to her next class before he can stand, and her seat in the cafeteria has been empty all week. She won't answer his calls and barely texts back. They manage to keep their snap streak, but only just. MJ sends no more than two Snapchats per day, and then they're always a black screen with no hint of why she's avoiding him. 

 

It's only when he comes home from patrol and finds her on his bed, hands clasped politely on her lap and dark bags encircling her eyes that he learns the truth and his world crashes down around him like that warehouse in Brooklyn crumbled around him, crushing him under concrete and steel and rebar. 

 

“I'm pregnant,” she says. She won't look him in the eye. He sinks to the floor, his chest tightening as he struggles to breathe, his anxiety like a wolf slashing at his throat, going for the kill. 

 

Peter knows how it happened, knows that it was a broken condom and faulty birth control that failed them, but he just - he doesn't know how it happened because they're sixteen years old and his girlfriend is having a baby, he's going to be a father, they're going to be parents and what the fuck is he supposed to do he can barely take care of his damn self let alone a baby and -

 

Michelle kisses him for three, four, five seconds and his lungs kick back in and he can breathe again and all he can think of is that scene from  _ Teen Wolf  _ with Lydia and Stiles in the locker room and he wonders if they'll end up like that somehow. Stubborn and in denial, that is. Unwilling to admit how they feel until they’re stuck in a never-ending cycle of heartbreak and jealousy and they’re both miserable apart but too scared to be honest with each other because that changes things and things are great the way they are.

 

Neither of them knows what to do, what to say, what to feel. They sit on his bed and don’t speak for the longest time. Can’t speak. His throat is closing up, swelling in terror because how the fuck did they let this happen? May and MJ’s parents and Tony and the team and Ned and their teachers and their classmates and strangers on the street are going to be so disappointed in them because they fucked up this simple thing. 

 

“Do - do you want this?” he manages to say after ten, twenty, sixty minutes of silence, the words a gunshot cracking through the tension. 

 

“I don’t know,” is all she can say, dropping her head into her hands and crying silent tears. Peter just sits there, empty and broken. Consoling her seems an impossible task when no one has any answers and he doesn’t know where to put his hands or what to say. He never does.

 

Things are changing and he’s not sure he can handle it anymore.

 

 

* * *

 

The suit becomes his out. He’ll be suffocating under the weight of his anxieties, crushed under the warehouse, drowning in the water, so he’ll take out his suit and swing around to clear his head, to forget about his distant girlfriend who barely talks to him and his disappointed aunt who cries at night when she thinks he won’t hear her and his awkward best friend who tiptoes around them because he’s scared of breaking them.

 

Thanos attacks, his armies spilling out across the globe as they attack millions of innocent civilians and there’s nothing Peter can do because Stark won’t let him join the fight and it  _ sucks  _ because he’s sick of stopping muggers and robbers after three weeks of doing nothing but. MJ still won’t talk to him, never answers his calls or texts and avoids him in the halls, and that hurts worse than anything because he misses his friend. All he wants is a friend, but she won’t even look him in the eye anymore.

 

And then something happens in Scotland and Tony’s calling him in and Peter can hardly contain his excitement when he gets to meet some  _ real life aliens.  _ Soon, he’s forgetting all about his problems and throwing himself into some impromptu training so he can beat Thanos’s ass and save the world and even the galaxy and prove that Spider-Man isn’t just some kid helping old ladies cross the street. He can do this, he’s capable and willing and ready to fight if Tony will give him the chance. 

 

A riot breaks out in New York while they’re off in Dubai fighting and Peter only hears about it after the fact when May calls to check in. Suddenly, his chest is constricting and all he sees is Thanos standing above him as he’s crushed under the weight of the warehouse and MJ is screaming for help and he can’t move can’t breathe can’t think and then someone’s next to him, talking him through it but it’s not MJ and he wants to cry because he just wants to go home. He was wrong about this superhero business. He’s not strong enough, not good enough to take on the world.

 

Someone, he thinks it’s Tony, puts a phone to his ear and a familiar, soothing voice echoes in his mind.

 

“MJ,” he chokes out, a relentless stream of tears dripping off his chin as he listens to her speak. She’s alive and talking to him and he was terrified because May wouldn’t tell him anything. 

 

“I’m right here.”

 

He remembers the baby just then, the little clump of cells that’s half-him and half-her and they haven’t talked about it but he needs to know so he asks, not caring if everyone overhears. 

 

At first, her answer is so quiet Peter’s not sure if she even spoke, and concern bubbles in his chest. She speaks again, voice still a whisper but it screams in his head.

 

“I lost the baby.”

 

He can’t remember what happens after, if he says anything or if he just drops the phone from shock and horror because he was almost a father and now he’s not. A pair of arms scoop him up like a baby and carry him to his room and he’s not sure who it is and his eyes are too blurry to see. All he can think of is that he failed. He failed Tony and Aunt May and Ned and MJ and the entire world because he wasn’t strong enough.

 

It takes another two weeks to defeat Thanos, and Peter spends all of that time back in Queens, avoiding everyone but May and his therapist. Even Ned’s calls are ignored. The therapist comes at a recommendation from Pepper Potts and Peter thinks he trusts her more than Tony so he reluctantly agrees. He’s glad he goes though, because it helps. He’s getting better again.

 

His return to school is celebrated by the Decathlon team, complete with streamers and a cake. He hugs everyone, even Flash, and enjoys himself because he deserves it. Tony makes a guest appearance and the shock on Flash’s face is the highlight of Peter’s year because he’s finally won. He and MJ reconcile that afternoon, outside the library after the party. They forgive each other for their misgivings and promise to work through their problems because losing their friendship was the worst thing to happen to them and MJ is more important to him than she’ll ever know.

 

Things change after that day, but nothing really changes, because he has Ned and May and MJ by his side, and that’s all he really needs.


End file.
